REED in Review: Essays in Celebration of the First Twenty-Five Years

by Audrey Douglas (Editor), Sally-Beth MacLean (Editor)

In 2002, the Records of Early English Drama (REED) project marked its twenty-fifth anniversary with a special series of sessions at the International Medieval Congress at Leeds University. The REED sessions were designed to allow critical reflection on the past, present, and future of the project as it entered the twenty-first century. Thirteen essays amplifying the content of selected conference papers, and a fourteenth submitted at the editors' invitation, make up REED in Review

.Contributors to the collection describe the conception and early years of REED, assess the project's impact on recent and current scholarship, and anticipate or propose stimulating new directions for future research. Individual essays address a wide variety of subjects, from the impact of REED research on Shakespeare textual editing, Robin Hood, patronage, and Elizabethan theatre studies, to a thought provoking redefinition of 'drama, ' details of recent ground-breaking research in Scottish records, and the broadening possibilities for editorial and research relationships with information technology. The editors' introduction and a select bibliography, with commentary and a list of REED-related publications by editors and scholars from a variety of disciplines, make up the remainder of this landmark volume.

264 pages, Hardcover

First published August 26, 2006

Reviews

[Geoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I purchased this book because it had an essay on RH. But this book is so much more - it is a fascinating collection of essays detailing the importance of the Records of Early English Drama project.
In terms of what I was looking for, John Marshall's essay "Gathering in the Name of the Outlaw: REED and Robin Hood" is a must read. Marshall makes a good argument that the data collected by REED challenges David Wiles seminal work The Early Plays of Robin Hood. (To be fair to Wiles his work appeared before REED collections started appearing.)
The other essay of note is Eila Williamson and John J. McGavin's "Crossing the Border: The Provincial Records of Southeast Scotland".